This talk explores how and why contemporary artists use language, sign and the signage of consumer culture.
Video Category: Visual art
Exploring Signs and Symbols in the Art of the Surrealists
Looking at a range of Surrealist painters – from Salvador Dali to Frida Kahlo, we will dive into their dreamlike worlds filled with symbols and meaning.
Iconography- reading the symbols in paintings
This talk gives a brief history of how art historians began to study ‘disguised symbols’ in art and explains how viewers can develop their skills of art interpretation.
Vanitas: a matter of life and deathÂ
This talk will look at the theme of ‘vanitas’ (the emptiness of the material world and the presence of death) in the history of art to better understand how past cultures have thought about the impermanence of life and how this type of thinking leads to a greater understanding of a life worth living.Â
Religion & Spirituality in Contemporary Art
During this talk, looking at a selection of artists working across different mediums, we will explore how religion and spirituality have been addressed by contemporary artists between the 1950s and today.
Contemporary Artists Responding to a Changing World & New Technologies
In this session we will look at how artists since the 1960s until present day, have been exploring the changing world around them and specifically embracing or critiquing rising technologies.
Educating the Future: Black Mountain CollegeÂ
This talk introduces Black Mountain College, its educational philosophies and how it intended to shape the future of art and learning. We will look at the core of the school’s curriculum specifically focusing on the art and pedagogical work of the school’s first art teachers Anni and Josef Albers.
Why Architecture?
Throughout human history, the construction of buildings has often Architect and historian Rasmus Wærn, hailing from Sweden, invites us to delve into the essence of architecture. In his lecture, he will discuss the innate human need to convey our sentiments through the physical structures we create.
Contemporary Expressions of Love and Loss
We will be exploring how the theme of Love and Loss comes to light in the works by two of the greatest British artists of the 20th century: Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.
Sex in the Event of Happiness
This talk draws on the work of Lauren Berlant (1957-2021), a leading theorist of sexuality, politics, and culture, to think about the place of sex and the erotic in contemporary culture.